LOS ANGELES—Tiger Woods may be preparing for the Masters but his legal team is still trying to keep a semblance of control over his image. No joke.
They have their hands full, of course, what with Joslyn James now flooding the Web with text messages she says Tiger sent to her that are so explicit they are certain to further exacerbate attempts by the golfer to reconcile with his wife, Elin, who is apparently exceptionally peeved about his dalliances with porn stars.
But while there seems to be little that Tiger can do legally to prevent the release of the text messages, he isn’t sitting still over the special-edition collectors series of Tiger-branded sex toys made by Pipedream Products.
As mentioned in a recent article, the series was only intended for a limited sale, and included items such as The Tuggin’ Tiger, a wind-up toy similar to the company’s popular Beatin’ Barack; the Take-Home Tiger Love Doll, willing to show you his wood if you show him your hole; and the Tiger’s Wood Cover, a king-sized condom measuring 4 inches in diameter.
Unfortunately, Thomas J. Walsh, a Tiger attorney with the Brody Wilkinson law firm, wasn’t amused. In a letter to Pipedream obtained by TMZ, he put Pipedream on notice that it is not to sell any more of the products and made some further demands.
“As I mentioned to you my firm represents Tiger Woods,” he wrote, “the ‘Tiger Woods’ products listed … at www.pipedreamproducts.com have come to our attention. Per our conversation, you indicated that you have sold out of these products and do not intend to sell them again in the future.”
He then requested that Pipedream comply with eight demands, including “identifying all wholesale customers for any of the [Tiger] Products (including the full address and the name of a principal or responsible ordering agent), and the amount of each Product that has been sold to each customer or distributor, including all dates of sale.”
When reached by AVN Friday, however, Pipedream’s Nick Orlandino said he has no intention of doing anything except to stop selling the Tiger products, which had pretty much already happened.
“I do this stuff as a goof,” he said. “It’s done as a quick hit, I make x amount of units; we know what we can sell and we get them out of here. We basically get them in the same week we ship them out."
About the letter, he didn’t have much to say. “Listen, I’m going to squash it with them, and if they don’t want to squash it I’ll go to court, because I’ll get so much publicity I won’t know what to do with it. So sue me. That’s what I told them.”
But what about the eight conditions? “I’m going to tell them to screw off. I’m not going to do any of that. What I’m going to say to them, very simply, is that I’m going to cease and desist and stop selling the products, and that’s it. I’m not accepting any fault, either. We’re not using his image or his name. We haven’t done anything illegal. It’s a cartoon and we haven’t used his full name. That’s it.”
That probably will be the end of it, too, unless it was Elin who demanded that something be done about the sex toys. But even if that were so, considering the mention of “golden showers” in the James text messages, a Take-Home Tiger Love Doll has probably become the least of her concerns.
